Home Improvement for Women

The rungs and legs of chairs can expand and contract with the seasons. That combined with the wear and tear of everyday use can loosen a chair. If not dealt with, the chair will eventually fall apart. Fixing chairs has become a way of life for me because my family and friends are always visiting for meals and games, so my big dining room table and chairs see a lot of action, all year-round. Every few months I have to round up a couple of chairs and tighten them.WHAT YOU NEED: Screwdriver, wood glue, toothpick, utility knife, sandpaper, screws and bungee cord. HOW TO GET IT DONE:

1. Examine the chair to locate the loose areas. Turn the chair over and look at it’s joints, screws,and pegs.
2. If you spot loose screws, tighten them up and test the chair. That may solve the problem.
3. If the hole has become enlarged so that the screw no longer fits tightly in it, re-move the screw. Then put a small dab of wood glue into the hole, insert a tooth-pick into the glue, and snap or cut it off flush with the surface of the chair.
4. Now reinsert the screw and tighten it. The toothpick and glue combination gives the screw something to hold onto.
5. If a screw is missing, remove another one so you can match it for size. If the screw is missing because it fell out of a too-big hole, find or buy a screw that’s just slightly bigger and longer than the one you removed. The slightly larger screw can be screwed more tightly into the expanded hole.
6. If the chair is loose because a rung has become loose or detached from its hole, you can glue and screw it back in. Gently pry apart the chair legs to loosen the rung.
7. Scrape off all traces of the old glue with a utility knife, sand the rung, and reapply wood glue to each end.
8. Apply wood glue to the holes on the chair legs.
9. Carefully put the rung back and secure it wit a bungee cord to hold the legs together while the glue dries.
10. Once the glue dries remove the bungee cord.

Now have a seat with your favorite drink! You have tightened your chair and you did it Barbara’s Way!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 at 10:28 am and is filed under Do It Yourself!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.